Captain Hasni Khalil's heart was pounding in his chest. He knew he would never be able to relate the proper order of events he had just experienced. The past five minutes were a wild kaleidoscope of spiraling, turning fighters, smoky missile trails, and brownish black smoke rings in the air, and plumes on the ground. He shuddered involuntarily at the memory of two near-misses: once with a Kfir and once with another F -20. He was rattled, upset with himself for not getting a kill. But it was good to be alive.
Khalil scanned the horizon. He prepared to patrol Orange Base when he caught a glint in the distance. He padlocked the speck and accelerated toward it. In a few moments he was visibly overtaking. It was a large aircraft, definitely not a Tigershark.
Turning in his seat to check his wingman's position, Khalil bobbed the nose of his fighter up and down. Though he could not see the bogey, Khalil's wingman repeated the motion and clicked his radio button to acknowledge.
Khalil arced in behind the bogey, slowly overtaking. He wondered why it was flying at basic cruise power. As he got closer he made out four of them-all F-15s. He knew that no friendly Eagles were to be in the area after the initial missile exchange. These four were heading parallel to the Kuwaiti border. Well, if they were Israelis they'd probably be conserving fuel, flying at altitude in a moderately fast cruise.
Keying his mike, Khalil transmitted on B channel. He wondered if he could get through; jamming still was persistent. He tried twice and got no reply.
The F-15s began a lazy turn to the left, Khalil noted, which simplified his intercept geometry. He continued his approach from below and slightly to port. At two miles Khalil squinted, hoping to make out the markings but it was still too far.
'TWO BOGEYS EIGHT O'CLOCK LOW! BREAK LEFT!'
Major Ben Nir reacted instantly to his wingman's warning. He looked left to see the specks of two small aircraft over his shoulder and loaded more than six Gs on his airframe. He nearly blacked out, forgetting to contract his diaphragm and abdominal muscles to aid his G-suit.
KHALIL'S PULSE JUMPED. 'THEY'RE ENGAGING! COVER ME.!”
Favorably positioned, the lead F-20 crossed behind the closest Eagle and cut the comer on the leader. Khalil rolled in trail, got a high-pitched steady tone in his earphones, and pressed the trigger. 'Snake! Watch the shot!'
The AIM-9 hurtled toward the F-l5's tail but exploded well below the target.
'Knock it off, knock it off! The Eagles are friendly!'
In his cockpit, major Ben Nir was extremely busy. Fire and warning lights came on across the board. He had felt the near-miss and knew that fragments of the warhead had punctured the belly. He was rapidly losing primary hydraulic pressure.
The wingman slid under his leader, assessing the damage.
There were dozens of holes from the blast-several large ones. 'You're venting a lot of hydraulic oil and some fuel. There's smoke from the left engine. How does it feel, sir?'
Ben Nir scanned his instruments again. The Eagle has a large hydraulic reservoir but the gauges told a grim tale; PC-l was near zero and the second system, PC-2, was fading. That only left the utility system. 'I want to get clear of the border,' Ben Nir said. 'I can make it farther south.'
Above the stricken F-l5, Khalil watched with bitter frustration.
The sinking feeling in his stomach threatened to reverse itself and spew up his breakfast.
The Eagle completed its turn and rolled wings-level when Ben Nir called again. 'PC-2 is falling off… utility looks weak. Controls are getting stiff.'
'Get out, Major. Eject while you still have control.' The wingman's voice had risen an octave.
Ben Nir swallowed hard, focused his attention, and replied, 'Negative. I want to get farther from the border.' The Code called for self-control, studied indifference to danger.
The minutes dragged by. The Eagle's increasingly erratic flight betrayed its imminent doom, but the pilot remained committed to his decision. The wingman called again. 'Major, you
'Ahhh… I've… I've just… ' The modulated voice was gone. Abdullah Ben Nir never finished the transmission. As his utility hydraulic system failed, the controls locked. The big slabs of the unit horizontal tail dropped with a decisive
As the nose snapped viciously through the horizon, aerodynamic forces in excess of thirty negative Gs smashed the pilot upward out of his seat, against the canopy. Ben Nir blacked out instantly, never realizing what happened. But his wingman saw the entire ghastly evolution. He would never forget the incredible sight of his squadron leader splayed like an insect on a glass slide despite the fittings meant to keep him secured to his seat.
The F-15 nosed into the bottom of an outside loop, but solid earth interrupted its arcing path. A fireball marked the end of one more life this day.
Bennett had attempted to follow the progress of the battle from the operations center. He knew it was futile, as the combat was too disjointed, spread over too much ground and hundreds of miles of sky.
Climbing atop the camouflaged command and communications center, the chief of Tiger Force surveyed the area. Smoke still drifted from bomb holes and dust was swept up in eddies of wind. He looked toward the runways. There appeared to be a cluster of bomb hits near the approach end of the nearest strip, but he could not tell about the parallel runway. Bennett had laid out the field with parallel runways just for this purpose. On conventional airfields, with crossed runways, it was simple to shut down the facility by bombing the intersection.
Six Phantoms had gotten though to Ha'il. Two fell to SAMs and antiaircraft guns but four pressed in to deliver their ordnance. At least one hangar was destroyed, and one fuel tank had been leveled. Fortunately, it contained little JP4 at the time.
Bennett breathed deeply.
Colonel Aaron Hali finally turned northward. He had seen Israeli aircraft pass below him singly and in pairs, but not one four-plane flight. It appeared the battle was over, and he wondered if Solomon Yatanahu had listened in on the morning's events. Hali looked forward to debriefing with his old friend. Time permitting, they would get drunk together.
Continuing his scan through the turn, Hali saw nothing. He heard calls from pilots ahead of him, crossing the SAM belt again.
'Bogeys six o'clock high!'
'More out to the east, Lead. Three and four o'clock.'
'I'm in!'
'Cover me, Benny, there's Tigersharks up here.'
'Where did they come from?'
Colonel Hali wracked his Eagle into as hard a turn as his airspeed allowed. The last call bothered him-it was unnecessary, contributing nothing. That seldom happened in the
Feeling his G-suit compress about his abdomen and thighs, Hali sustained a maximum-rate turn into the unexpected threat, seeing two Northrops pass to port. He noted twin motes of light at their tails. Tigersharks had only one engine.
''They're F-5s! All Eagles, all Eagles, this is Aaron. These are F-5s. Out.'
